In 1896 a georgia couple suing for damages inthe accidentaldeath of their two year old was told that since the child had made no real economiccontribution to the family, therewas no liability for damages. in contrast, lessthan a century later, in 1979, the parents of a three year old sued in New York foraccidental-death damages and wonan award of $750,000. thetransformation in social values implicit in juxta- posing these two incidents is thesubject of viviana zelizer'sexcellent book, <i>pricing the priceless child</i>. during the nineteenth century, sheargues, the concept of the"useful" child who contributed to the family economy gave way gradually to thepresent-day notion of the"useless" child who, though producing no income for, and indeed extremely costly to,its parents, is yet consideredemotionally "priceless." well established among segments of the middle and upperclasses by the mid-1800's, thisnew view of childhood spread through- outsociety in the iate-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries as reformers introducedchild-labor regulations andcompulsory education laws predicated in part on the assumption that a child's emotionalvalue made child labor taboo. for zelizer the origins of thistransformation were many andcomplex. the gradual erosion of children's productivevalue in a maturing industrial economy, thedecline in birth and death rates, especially in child mortality, and the development of thecompanionate family (a family inwhich members were united by explicit bonds of love rather than duty) were all factors critical in changing the assessment ofchildren's worth. yet"expulsion of children from the 'cash nexus,'... although clearly shaped by profoundchanges in the economic,occupational, and family structures," zelizer maintains. "was also part of acultural process 'of sacralization' of children's lives. " protectingchildren from the crass businessworld became enormously important for late-nineteenth-centurymiddle-class Americans, she suggests;this sacralization was a way of resisting what they perceived as the relentlesscorruption of human values by the marketplace. instressing the cultural determinants of a child's worth. zelizer takes issue withpractitioners of the new "sociologicaleconomics," who have analyzed such traditionally sociological topics ascrime, marriage, education, and health solely in terms of their economicdeterminants. allowing only a small role for cultural forces in the form of individual"preferences," these sociologists tendto view all human behavior as directed primarily by the principle of maximizing economicgain. zelizer is highly criticalof this approach, and emphasizes instead theopposite phenomenon: the power of social values to h09fU5l
transform price. as children became morevaluable in emotional terms, sheargues, their "exchange" or " surrender" value on themarket, that is, the conversion of theirintangible worth into cash terms, became much greater. Z$Vd8U;
1. itcan be inferred from the passage that accidental-death damage awards in Americaduring the nineteenth century tended to be based principally on the x I(X+d``
(a) earnings of the person at time of death DG
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(b) wealth of the party causing the death zdN(r<m9"
(c) degree of culpability of the party causingthe death Xm~N Bt
(d) amount of money that had been spent on theperson killed ko`KAU<T_
2. itcan be inferred from the passage that in the early 1800's children weregenerally regarded by their families as individuals who '/<f'R^
(a) needed enormous amounts of security andaffection q,.@<s W
(b) required constant supervision whileworking f^@ D uI
(c) were important to the economic well-beingof a family 7\EY&KI"0
(d) were unsuited to spending long hours inschool & z;1Z
3. whichof the following alternative explanations of the change in the cash value ofchildren would be most likely to be put forward by sociological economists asthey are described in the passage? =.t 3|5U8
(a) the cash value of children rose during thenineteenth century because parents began to increase their emotional investmentin the upbringing of pXoT@[}
their children. &>3 A L,
(b) the cash value of children rose during thenineteenth century because their expected earnings over the course of alifetime increased greatly. oNIt<T
(c) the cash value of children rose during thenineteenth century because the spread of humanitarian ideals resulted in awholesale reappraisal of the worth of an individual >1NE6T
(d) the cash value of children rose during thenineteenth century because compulsory education laws reduced the supply, andthus raised the costs, of available child labor. '2xf U
4. theprimary purpose of the passage is to !)LVZfQ0
(a) review the literature in a new academicsubfield *n2le7
(b) present the central thesis of a recentbook ~cb7]^#u1l
(c) contrast two approaches to analyzinghistorical change oaM 3#QJ
(d) refute a traditional explanation of asocial phenomenon ] 5:0.$5
5. zelizerrefers to all of the following as important influences in changing theassessment of children's worth except changes in !ZzDSQ ;
(a) the mortality rate 'XW9+jj)/
(b) the nature of industry E}8wnrxf
(c) the nature of the family _?c7{
(d) attitudes toward reform movements W&;,7T8@
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